Hello from Sweden
Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2013 5:06 pm
I bought my first guitar with the money I got as I left the millitary service. I took a beginners course and started playing. I remember I felt quite downhearted that I had started so late, I was 20 years old and I wanted to know how to play the guitar and woe the women NOW, not spend endless hours learning it first.
I did spend endless hours, but once that course ran out I never signed up for a new one. Instead I tried to learn on my own and it always ended the same way; i ran out of juice when I rushed head first into a massive wall of teqniques and theories I never could wrap my brain around and had noone to ask. So I quit. After all i had other hobbys that took less effort and thus gave me more satisfaction; photography, novelwriting, boardgames and indeed computergames.
Im not sure what ever happened to that guitar, but I once left home forgetting to close the window and when I came back the neck was broken. So I blame it on the elements of nature, or possibly some members of my family, wich in the end amounts to the same thing.
And for a long while I did not own a guitar. I felt I missed it sometimes, especially just picking it up with no plan, no idea of what to do, no focused practice, just playing what ever came to mind inventing tunes as I went along. I remember how that used to give me some peace of mind that my other hobbies didnt, how that somehow gave voice to thoughts and feelings that I just lacked words or vision to express in other ways.
Only when my brother found a halfbroken guitar abandoned and brought it home and gave it to me I remembered once more the frustration of actually learning to play. I was now 25. I hadnt held a guitar for five years but everything came back to me the instant I picked it up. Both the joy and the frustration.
I suffered from the typical autodidact-guitar-player-syndrome im sure many of you have experienced; i knew a dussin of intros but not a single whole song. I could play the beginning of "Stairway to heaven", "More than words", "Tears in heaven", "Layla", "Romanza", "Cavatina", "Dont fear the reaper", "Nothing else matters" and a few others. My efforts to learn them fully failed as I discovered the potential of internet and the easy access to more songs than I could ever learn; it was just too hard to focus. Whenever I hit a hard passage and embarked on that necessary tedious grinding i just tired of the song and found ten new ones id rather learn instead. Afterall, who would scold me for giving up? Thats right, no one.
I do remember how that guitarr ended. I was a student of library & information science at the time, and we students had a pub of our own. One night I brought the guitar with me because a friend wanted to borrow it. While leaning it towards a wall, someone accidentily bumped into it and the neck broke. So we concluded there was only one decent thing to do with it, to go all in rock 'n roll. The next morning as I came there to help tidy up the place as was customary, we found pieces of it throughout the whole bar-room, including the shelves that held the liqour. Once more I was left without a guitar.
Years went by. The same odd longing struck me from time to time; i missed the meditative feeling of just randomly feeling a improvised melody or a song out. Nothing advanced or fancy, just in line with my general mood. I hit my 30s. Apparently, I had bemoaned the state of things to my girlfriend one too many times as she suddenly on my 33th birthday gave me a guitar with the implicit meaning of pls shut up about it allready. It was completely out of the blue. It was awesome.
But as it turned out I had the exact same problem as before. I just couldnt do this on my own. Once more, enter internet. But this time I wasnt looking for songs to learn, i was looking for someone to teach me to learn. I found several diffrent sites, but once I found total guitars I knew I had found the right fit for me.
I instantly liked Neil Hogan, the way he thaught, his demeanor, the structure of the lessons, where particulary 2 things stood out from other sites; the emphasis on theory and the inclusion of the background of that particular song/artist. It was a comprehensive view on playing the guitar that really rang a bell with me. So I lurked for quite a while, trying out the free lessons and playing for my 2 months old daughter who seems to like it. And recently I took the next step; i joined the Target-lite program.
And im very happy that I did, it seems to be the perfect fit for me. This way I dont get distracted by all options, but stick to two songs for a month. One month should be enough to decently learn a song or two from beginning to end, but only time will tell. The only thing im lacking right now are more theorybased lessons; but im hoping that maybe this will be included in the lite-program sometime down the line. Meanwhile Im trying to learn how to use a pick, something I never played around with before, and something I find suprisingly hard for such a basic thing. Just goes to show how easy it is to miss out on important things when you go autodidact.
Thats a little about me and the road that took me here. Im looking forward to participate more in what this site has to offer and interact more with y'all.
Cheers!
I did spend endless hours, but once that course ran out I never signed up for a new one. Instead I tried to learn on my own and it always ended the same way; i ran out of juice when I rushed head first into a massive wall of teqniques and theories I never could wrap my brain around and had noone to ask. So I quit. After all i had other hobbys that took less effort and thus gave me more satisfaction; photography, novelwriting, boardgames and indeed computergames.
Im not sure what ever happened to that guitar, but I once left home forgetting to close the window and when I came back the neck was broken. So I blame it on the elements of nature, or possibly some members of my family, wich in the end amounts to the same thing.
And for a long while I did not own a guitar. I felt I missed it sometimes, especially just picking it up with no plan, no idea of what to do, no focused practice, just playing what ever came to mind inventing tunes as I went along. I remember how that used to give me some peace of mind that my other hobbies didnt, how that somehow gave voice to thoughts and feelings that I just lacked words or vision to express in other ways.
Only when my brother found a halfbroken guitar abandoned and brought it home and gave it to me I remembered once more the frustration of actually learning to play. I was now 25. I hadnt held a guitar for five years but everything came back to me the instant I picked it up. Both the joy and the frustration.
I suffered from the typical autodidact-guitar-player-syndrome im sure many of you have experienced; i knew a dussin of intros but not a single whole song. I could play the beginning of "Stairway to heaven", "More than words", "Tears in heaven", "Layla", "Romanza", "Cavatina", "Dont fear the reaper", "Nothing else matters" and a few others. My efforts to learn them fully failed as I discovered the potential of internet and the easy access to more songs than I could ever learn; it was just too hard to focus. Whenever I hit a hard passage and embarked on that necessary tedious grinding i just tired of the song and found ten new ones id rather learn instead. Afterall, who would scold me for giving up? Thats right, no one.
I do remember how that guitarr ended. I was a student of library & information science at the time, and we students had a pub of our own. One night I brought the guitar with me because a friend wanted to borrow it. While leaning it towards a wall, someone accidentily bumped into it and the neck broke. So we concluded there was only one decent thing to do with it, to go all in rock 'n roll. The next morning as I came there to help tidy up the place as was customary, we found pieces of it throughout the whole bar-room, including the shelves that held the liqour. Once more I was left without a guitar.
Years went by. The same odd longing struck me from time to time; i missed the meditative feeling of just randomly feeling a improvised melody or a song out. Nothing advanced or fancy, just in line with my general mood. I hit my 30s. Apparently, I had bemoaned the state of things to my girlfriend one too many times as she suddenly on my 33th birthday gave me a guitar with the implicit meaning of pls shut up about it allready. It was completely out of the blue. It was awesome.
But as it turned out I had the exact same problem as before. I just couldnt do this on my own. Once more, enter internet. But this time I wasnt looking for songs to learn, i was looking for someone to teach me to learn. I found several diffrent sites, but once I found total guitars I knew I had found the right fit for me.
I instantly liked Neil Hogan, the way he thaught, his demeanor, the structure of the lessons, where particulary 2 things stood out from other sites; the emphasis on theory and the inclusion of the background of that particular song/artist. It was a comprehensive view on playing the guitar that really rang a bell with me. So I lurked for quite a while, trying out the free lessons and playing for my 2 months old daughter who seems to like it. And recently I took the next step; i joined the Target-lite program.
And im very happy that I did, it seems to be the perfect fit for me. This way I dont get distracted by all options, but stick to two songs for a month. One month should be enough to decently learn a song or two from beginning to end, but only time will tell. The only thing im lacking right now are more theorybased lessons; but im hoping that maybe this will be included in the lite-program sometime down the line. Meanwhile Im trying to learn how to use a pick, something I never played around with before, and something I find suprisingly hard for such a basic thing. Just goes to show how easy it is to miss out on important things when you go autodidact.
Thats a little about me and the road that took me here. Im looking forward to participate more in what this site has to offer and interact more with y'all.
Cheers!
